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US 7,742,512 B2Granted
Scalable laser with robust phase locking
AssigneeRaytheon Company
InventorsKalin Spariosu, Alexander A. Betin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A robust scalable laser. The laser includes plural fiber laser resonators. A cavity that is external to the fiber laser resonators combines plural laser beams output from the plural fiber laser resonators into a single output laser beam. In a specific embodiment, the plural fiber laser resonators are eye-safe double-clad Er:YAG laser resonators that are pumped via laser diode arrays.
Claims27
A robust scalable eye-safe laser system comprising:
- a plurality of laser fibers, said laser fibers including double-clad Er:YAG laser resonators;
- a high-power laser pump source coupled to each of said laser fibers;
- and
- an external cavity having an optical axis, and beam-flattening optics characterized by a hexagonal geometry for flattening individual Gaussian-like TEM00 beams into top hat laser beams and forming a combined beam symbolized by a random phase and amplitude multiple beam profile, said external cavity having a first lens, a single aperture, a second lens and a mirror located along the optical axis, said single aperture being of predetermined diameter and being located at focal points of the first and the second lenses.
1 more element
A beam phase-locking system comprising:
- first means for receiving plural single-mode beams of electromagnetic energy and providing flat-top beams as output in response thereto;
- and
- second means for combining said flat-top beams via spatial filtering and providing a collimated combined beam in response thereto, said first means including multiple fiber laser oscillators having integrated Bragg grating mirrors, said fiber laser oscillators including Er-doped YAG crystal (Er:YAG) resonator cores, said integrated Bragg grating mirrors representing a first end of a spatial filter included in said second means, and said spatial filter including beam flattening optics characterized a hexagonal geometry, a collimating lens pair having a first collimating lens and a second collimating lens and a single aperture of predetermined diameter therebetween, and a mirror, the aperture being located at the focal points of the first and the second collimating lenses.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.